Aprilia Cabrio - here we go again

[simonandjuliet]

Thanks for your comments - I have had a couple of pm's as well. Still reflecting , but moving more towards keeping the key switch - I can always add something later

Fun day today, and probably the last in the garage for a while because we do the next and final batch of vendanges this week. The Syrah will be picked on Friday , then the Carignan Tuesday - so lots of prep !

Clutch mechanism is fitted inside the bellhousing before bolting the 'box to the engine. It means that there is no need for a clutch aligning tool as the plate is on the input shaft and fits straight into the bearing in the flywheel.

Following up some "clutch plate discussion" the rivets on an Aprilia are also on alternate sides on alternate plates on a double-plate system

Once the 'box is bolted to the engine you rotate the engine and clutch until the M6 bolt holes line up (wavy spring plate) loosely fit the first one, rotate the whole lot, fit the second 120° further round then a third another 120° further round. If you try and tighten one side before moving on it can tip and bind.
Once the 6 x M6 bolts have been fitted, then you start with the big springs, doing the same thing. Once they are all in and lightly tightened then you go round them and tighten them fully - I put a blob of orange paint on to identify those that have been done, so as not to forget one !

Then the oil-filter activation arm pinch bolt needs to be tightened

A quick check with a long lever on the arm to see if it disengages and selecting all the gears ,then it's done

Next up was to fit the oil pump (more gasket making) , oil filter (yet more gaskets), oil, oil pressure pipe and gauge, starter motor.
Connect to a battery and push the starter lever

After about 20-30 seconds the pressure came up - just below "normale" but I reckon that's OK on starter motor alone. With the rocker cover off you can see everything moving nicely and oil flowing around the cam and followers

Lastly, I have tried to renovate another brake fluid reservoir that I found in my spares, it has the original Lockheed writing on it, albeit quite damaged. It is in French which is in keeping with my desire to keep the car as a "french" car ....

I stripped the paint but before doing that I protected the writing with an acrylic spray and then masked it. If it looks "moche" I can always fit a nice shiny one !

(moche = grotty, tatty, un-appealing - a great word !)

Dog has been fitting the doors and finishing the cills ready for painting

[davidwheeler]

I also have the trafficators but be aware they will not park over about 20mph.

[DavidLaver]

....so they double as "air brakes"...

[DavidLaver]

Always a treat to see the valve gear, and good clutch advice to remember is here.  ONE DAY I'll pull everything out into a note.  Once upon a time I'd have been cutting and pasting as it came in but am no longer that organised.

[ColinMarr]

I also have the trafficators but be aware they will not park over about 20mph.

And as I remember it, they rise up out of their housings at 70mph and above, but thankfully they don't light up!
Colin

[tzf60]

Fascinating reading, as always, Simon 
The pictures are really captivating......but would love to have seen a video of you spinning up the motor!!!
Sorry, I'm being selfish 
 
Keep 'em coming,
Tim

[davidwheeler]

I've not noticed mine rising up at 70mph +

[simonandjuliet]

Bit quiet again due to ongoing harvest.

The Carignan is due to be picked tomorrow so the winery has been set up. the red machine in the foreground is an "egrappoir" or de-stemmer.
It is probably older than the Cabrio and makes a great sound , a bit like "chuckety-chuckety-chinese-chicken" - it has a cover over the tube with holes in it and you put the whole bunches in one end, the grapes fall out of the bottom into the "queue de cochon" or pig's tail and get pumped into the tank via the red tube.
The stripped stems come out the other end and get carted off to the compost heap in the Ercole

All very basic and labour intensive

In between other jobs I have stripped and cleaned a couple of carbs with a view to getting a correct, original Zenith 32 VIML set-up. The car had been running on a orphanised Solex carb without any of the proper linkage. I have managed to source most of the bits but I am not 100% sure it is all there yet !

It is complex,typical Lancia over-engineering. I will post photos of the linkage later

Anyway, back to wine making ......

ps last photo was last Friday morning at 7am and it is the moon , not the sun

pps I noticed that our spell checker has changed bast**dised to orphanised , makes a change to co-bottom

[stanley sweet]

Love that Ercole. Being grey it always reminds me of a Kettenkrad.

[simonandjuliet]

You could always buy an Ercole, there is one for sale in Toulouse !

[simonandjuliet]

Quick update

The Cabrio is staying with Dog for a while longer because he doesn't want me to have it back to refit and then be returned for wing fitting etc.
He would rather all the prep was done first ... oh well, better find another project !

As part of the prep he has re-profiled one of the front wings so it is the same as the other side , it needed a small piece cutting out just before the running board, then re-welded. New wing struts were also made, because they support the bottom edge of the wing. They were missing on both sides

A lot of time has been spent planishing the wings so as reduce the amount of eventual filler.It all looks a lot straighter and both sides match !

Interesting detail on the LHS front wing (Off-side on the continent) - 5 bolt holes on the front and 3 on the top. They have been filled in and ground down, but they look very much as if the were the support plate for something - flagstaff maybe ??

I still have a feeling that this car was in France during the war and possibly survived because it was used by some high ranking official - who knows ?

[stanley sweet]

I wonder if the holes line up with a Notek light?  Be great to know it's history. Did you escape the terrible flash floods? They were very close to you.

[simonandjuliet]

Thanks Stan
The floods were all around us. Our village was OK because they did a lot of work recently, following the floods in the late 90's - early 00's

Other villages fared less well. It was a lot worse than you saw on the telly - but the response was fantastic.

[frankxhv773t]

Some, like me, may not know what a Notek light is so I looked it up.

Many of the FHC’s German vehicles are equipped with a “Notek light” for night driving.
The unit was named after the company, Nova-Technik GmbH, that made them in Munich.
The 35-watt bulb under the hooded housing shines backwards, against a mirror. That reflected light spills out onto the roadway from under the helmet-like hood. It illuminates the road to about 100 to 130 feet ahead of the vehicle in a roughly 80-foot swath.
The light had three settings; dim, medium, and full. The dim setting made the vehicle’s light invisible from the air at altitudes above 2,000 feet. Lights on the full setting became hard to see at over 6,400 feet.

[davidwheeler]

They sound rather better than standard Aprilia lights then.